If you can ignore my Mistress’s hacking cough then it should be quite a quiet day. Ari is proving that you don’t need an expensive Christmas present as he gets delight out of an
Amazon cardboard box. Shadow is on her usual position on the dining chair watching out of the window. Megan is curled up on the settee and my Mistress is contemplating going back to bed. That just leaves me to muse on a conversation that I had with my Mistress a few days ago. In the pub they had been talking about who they would invite to a fictional dinner party. They could include 6 or 7 real people from any time in history. To be honest they had all come up with very odd mixes and in my Mistress’s case I was intrigued to know how the conversation would have gone if she had sat Boadicea next to Che Guevara and whether the conversation between Plato and Stephen Fry would have made any sense to my Mistress at all. What it has left me thinking is, as a dog, who would I invite?
It is important here to remember that we are talking about real people and not fictional characters. You can have a whole different discussion about which fictional characters to invite. Would it be worth including Santa Claus just so he brought everyone a present? Anyway, for my dinner party I would like to include Buddy who was the first German Shepherd to be trained as a guide dog for the blind in America, Lola, an Australian Labradoodle, who is a medical alert dog for a friend of ours, Mick the Miller, a racing greyhound who won the English Derby and was the first greyhound to run 525 yeards in under 30 seconds, Laika, the first dog in space, Boatswain, who was Lord Byron’s dog, Pal, a collie who played Lassie in the movie Lassie Come Home and finally my dad, Elio vom Scharlig, because I haven’t met him yet and I’d like to.
You may notice that I haven’t chosen any of the dogs noted for being faithful to their owners long after they die. I’ve already got those characteristics I don’t need to be outdone in the things I’d be good at. I’d like to learn from dogs who were good at other things. Although I guess Boatswain is a bit of an exception to that. I thought he and I could compare notes and he might be able to suggest how to get my Mistress to write a wonderful poem about me.
Alfie Dog with a little help from Rosemary J Kind alfie@alfiedog.me.uk
Alfie’s Diary – the Book is available at Amazon UK –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00583ZGSA